Midnight Guardians

by Jonathon King

  The Brown Man turned at the look in your eye, turned to see what had pulled your attention. “Go back inside, Andrew!” Carter said. “This is nothing for you.”

  But the kid stepped out, the ten-year-old, the same one who’d made all those drug drops to you. He was dressed in the typical style of the day: long baggy shorts that came down to his calves, an oversize T-shirt, ball cap turned sideways on his head. His eyes were too calm and effortless for a kid that age, too “I don’t give a shit” for a boy who would have a natural energy and inquisitiveness. The Mustang had brought that childlike joy in his eyes whenever the boy made a delivery.

  Now it was more of a feral sizing up the situation. Hell, without your car, he might not recognize you at all, never mind without your legs.

  “He’s your son?” you said, not meaning to let the words slip out. The Brown Man turned back, and now his eyes were different, too.

  “Not that’s it’s any of your business, Booker. But yes, he’s my son. And the smartest employee I have. You have a problem with that?” Carter said, and you could tell you’d hit a live wire.

  “You use your own son as a drug mule, a kid to make your deliveries?” you said without thinking, letting the emotion slip through. And instantly, you knew you’d lost the plan, lost the ruse to pull the man into a faux business deal that would ease his reluctance by appealing to his greed and bring him within range.

  But he stepped forward anyway, this time with anger in his face.

  “What, Mr. Dirty Cop? You’re going to tell me how to raise my own son? You with the drug habit, you handing out the money that goes into my pockets, you with the tin shield—you think that makes you better than me?”

  Hell, you couldn’t have planned it this well: Carter getting pissed, coming closer, railing at you to make it that much easier to pull the trigger.

  “Is that what your daddy taught you, Mr. Cripple? I teach my son how to survive, how to do business with the likes of you. His generation ain’t so stupid if you show them the way of the world, Mr. Righteous Cop.”

  Our eyes met then, the Brown Man stepping close enough now that you could see the freckles on his dark face, the now damp stain on the collar of his white shirt, the anger pulsing in the vein at his neck.

  Your hand was already on the makeshift grip of the shotgun. And when it came forward, barely three inches of the sawed-off barrel poked out of the jacket that hid it, and you shoved it forward between the rungs of the gate and fired nearly point-blank into the Brown Man’s sternum. The blast echoed through the neighborhood, the 00 buckshot, nine large pellets, ripping through cloth and flesh and lung tissue and ruining the spotlessness of the man’s suit with an instantaneous spread of red blood, like the snarling mouth of a rabid dog.

  The man only took a short hop back, and then crumpled like a marionette suddenly cut loose of its strings. When the Brown Man fell onto the driveway pavement, you could see the son standing beyond him, his eyes wide and his mouth frozen.

  You did not say a word—only pumped the shotgun once, heard the ejected shell hit the sidewalk, and then rotated the barrel so that the newly sanded aperture fit snug under your chin. Then you pulled the trigger once more.

  — 26 —

  WE GATHERED AT Billy’s penthouse apartment overlooking the ocean in West Palm Beach. The moon was down, and there was a hint of a breeze coming in with the tide. Luz Carmen was out on the patio, looking out into the dark, listening to the hush of waves. We were not worried that she might throw herself over the railing.

  Billy and his wife were on one of the leather loveseats in the sunken living room. They sat close, Billy sipping one of the martinis that he prided himself on making in the classic mode, dry, with the open bottle of vermouth only passed over the top of the vodka, allowing barely more than the aroma to insinuate the drink. Curiously, Diane was not imbibing as she usually would. Sherry and I were on the couch, sharing a bottle of Rolling Rock.

  Billy’s place has a museum quality about it: the African hand-carved ebony sculptures, a fascinating collection of Southwest paper clay art, and a stunning copy of The Guardian of the Seraglio by Eduard Charlemont dominating the southern wall. Billy once told me the sword-bearing chief depicted was said to guard the women in his Moorish palace.

  When I looked from the painting to Billy, he showed no indication that he was reading my mind. But the allusion was not lost on me.

  “Horace D. Wiggins is apparently s-singing an aria d-down at the Broward Sheriff’s Office,” Billy said, using the now known name of our “assassin.”

  “He’s already admitted t-taking assignments from Carlyle Carter, the so-called Br-Brown Man, and seems quite enamored with himself as a real hit m-man. When he is charged with the m-murders of Andrés and his girlfriend, the attempted murders of Booker and of b-both of you, I suppose he will at some point realize that he can’t just push the reset b-button on the game and start all over again.”

  “How old is he?” I said.

  “Twenty.”

  The disappointment in Billy’s voice was once again stronger than I was used to. “B-Barely more than a child himself. He’ll see soon enough that the inside of a m-maximum-security prison is not nearly as intriguing as the television version.”

  “He admitted to setting the bomb under Max’s car?” Sherry said.

  “Apparently, the Medicare fraud people got nervous about one of their satellite operations. They shared their concern with Carter, and since it threatened his drug supply chain, Carter put word out on the street that he wanted the Carmen family scared into silence,” I said.

  “The shooters at the park and the gang who tried to hit Andrés from the car?” Diane asked.

  “That’s how you got involved,” Sherry stated the obvious, a favorite dig of hers that referred to my recurring ability to get my ass in trouble.

  “Wh-When that d-didn’t work, our Mr. Carter w-went to his n-next line of defense. He p-put his young assassin on alert, and Mr. Wiggins began following his t-targets with GPS trackers that apparently were being pl-placed by Carter’s own son at his father’s instructions.

  “They will m-match the fingerprint from the GPS found in the Gran Fury. Another child will go into the system.”

  I watched as Diane’s free hand moved to cover Billy’s. They had always been an affectionate couple since their marriage three years ago, but there was something else going on.

  I turned to Sherry, passed the beer to her, and changed the subject.

  “What about Booker?”

  “His parents are coming down from New York to claim the body. His father is an ex-cop,” Sherry said. “Not a good situation. He’ll lose his pension. Probably be buried with no recognition from the office. I know some deputies who thought he did the world a favor by taking out Carter, but there are at least a few knuckleheads over at the Oceanside Gym who are sweating bullets right about now.”

  “You p-put in your report on what Booker told you?” Billy asked.

  “Damn straight,” she said. “Hammonds will roll some heads.”

  “And all without so much as lifting a finger,” I said.

  Sherry took a sip of the bottle and laughed.

  “That’s what he has you for, Max.”

  “He played me,” I admitted.

  “That’s what a good manager does when his manpower is down in a bad economy. He uses good freelancers—doesn’t have to pay benefits.”

  “Law enforcement follows a b-business model,” Billy said, tipping his martini glass.

  “Damn straight,” I said, mocking Sherry.

  “You’re both full of shit,” Diane said, but she was smiling.

  “That may be true,” I said. “But since we’re on the subject, what happens to the other criminals in this entire cluster that started the whole thing—the guys running the Medicare scam? The guys making the big bucks behind their computers and paperwork and licensing and stolen social security numbers…”

  We all looked at one another, tr
ading eye contact, avoiding the fact that we had no ready answers.

  “The wheels of justice grind slowly, M-Max,” Billy finally said.

  “Hah!” I sputtered. “Some things never change, eh?”

  But Billy’s eyes went over to his wife, the judge.

  A hush fell over the room as I got up to fetch another beer. When I asked Sherry if she’d share it, she declined. So I opened a bottle from Billy’s big stainless fridge and eased outside onto the patio.

  “Can I get you anything, Ms. Carmen?”

  Luz Carmen was quiet. I wasn’t sure she’d heard me. I thought she might have fallen asleep. But then she said, “The ocean tides, they change every day, but then, they never really change year after year, do they, Mr. Freeman?

  I stepped forward and put a hand on the railing. It was dark to the east, but if you listened carefully, you could hear the soft surf below.

  The feds never did show up at the ranger station to put Luz in protective custody. Billy had instead taken her to his place. When I called him after the arrest of our “assassin” at Sherry’s, the threat was deemed to have been minimized. After we found out about the murder of the Brown Man and suicide of Deputy Booker, we had to reluctantly agree.

  Two days later, Luz arranged a cremation of her brother’s remains, held a simple service, and prayed, I supposed, to her own private god. Afterward, she told Billy that she would be returning to Bolivia.

  I didn’t know how to respond to her rumination on the human lack of change.

  She was emotionally wounded, unsure what direction to take, beaten down by the turns her life had taken. It was familiar territory for me. I’d been there a few years ago when I chose to pick up and leave Philadelphia for South Florida.

  “But you know, the tides also go in and out, Ms. Carmen. They rise and fall, just like life.”

  “Ah, the philosopher Mr. Freeman,” she said, a hint of amusement in her voice for the first time since I’d met her.

  “No,” I said. “The realist.”

  She let that sit for a moment. “Fair enough,” she finally said. “I will be returning to my true home.”

  “Bolivia?”

  “Yes, to Rurrenabaque,” she said. “The short time out in your Everglades has convinced me that I might find peace there. I may have relatives who will help. I may be able to teach there—maybe English to the children.”

  Only one side of her face was illuminated in the darkness. She was again looking out at something I could not see.

  “The place of the pink dolphins?” I said, and this time she actually smiled.

  “Yes. It is the one place where I remember my brother being a true child, an innocent.”

  If all she had left were memories, I wasn’t going to deny her that respite. I did not respond and drifted quietly back into the apartment. Two steps in, I looked up and was instantly aware of a thickness of anticipation.

  Sherry turned to me, smiling as if she’d been missing me for days. Billy was looking askance, as if some joke had gone awry. But his wife was glowing, her eyes bright, and her complexion somewhere between an embarrassed flush and deep pride. They had all frozen with my entrance, as if they’d popped a bottle of champagne, and were waiting for the cork to hit something.

  “Diane and Billy are having a baby!” Sherry said.

  I suffered the instant of silence such a statement deserves, and blurted out something like, “What? How?”

  Sherry waved her fingers at me the way she does when I make a bad joke, and then performed an impressive, one-legged stand-up to meet Diane in a hug.

  I strode across to Billy and took his extended hand. “Congratulations, Counselor,” I said, hoping the tone in my voice did not reveal the question that next rang in my head: Is this something you really want?

  The ensuing gush of conversation was of due dates and maternity time and the clearing out of an extra bedroom, and then a belated, in my opinion, call for real champagne. Crystal flutes appeared and a chilled bottle, and whether in deference to Luz Carmen, or simply because Billy’s particular taste doesn’t not call for exploding corks, the wine was carefully opened and poured.

  Diane accepted half a glass. “For celebration only,” she said. “I’ll have to get used to giving this up.”

  After the toast, the ritualistic separation of the genders occurred. The women huddled together in their particular sharing of stories and questions, and the men drifted off under the confident gaze of the Moorish guard mounted on the wall.

  “This is what’s been bugging you lately?” I said, not bothering to list the times Billy had shown uncharacteristic anger during the last few days, and the profound disappointment on his face when the circumstances of young people, children, had been revealed.

  “It is a difficult w-world today, Max,” Billy said. “I would not tr-try to deceive you b-by pretending that I haven’t given thought to bringing a child into it. Children who grow up without direction, children who grow up without any worthy role models; worse, children who are actually taught the kind of selfishness and manipulation, and outright lawlessness by the ones they depend on most.”

  I could not argue with him. Billy had grown up without a father. I had grown up in the shadow of domestic violence. But somehow we made it out, hadn’t we? Still, it was a different time.

  “I have heard the argument, my friend, that if people like you and Diane, smart and carrying people of high morals and strong ethics don’t bring children into this world, then we are all lost,” I said.

  I raised the edge of my glass to his and lightly touched them together. “At this moment in time, Billy, I think we need you.”

  — 27 —

  THE RIDE HOME was quiet, as you might expect after the resolution of a case, the Manchesters’ announcement of a child on the way, and the simmering non-resolution of something that still stood in the way of my relationship with Sherry.

  “Isn’t that great about Billy and Diane?”

  “Yeah, great.”

  “What? You’re not happy for them?”

  “Sure, I’m happy. If that’s what they want—and they know what they’re getting into with all the time and attention and dedication involved in raising a kid—which I’m sure they do. Then it’s great.”

  Quiet. The spaced lights along I-95 set up an almost metronome quality as they strobed through the truck at sixty-five m.h., whisking over the hood, onto the dashboard, the quick glow on both our faces, and then gone until the next one.

  “It’s not always just about the commitment and the dedication and the responsibility, Max,” Sherry said.

  I nodded.

  “It’s also about the love.”

  Sherry unbuckled her seat belt, rolled on one hip, and rested her head on my shoulder.

  “You know that’s illegal, Detective?” I said, moving the back of my fingers to her cheek.

  “So arrest me.”

  When we got to her house, the street was once again staid, neat, dark, and quiet. Wind ruffled the trees. The scent of night-blooming jasmine tickled the air. Sherry didn’t wait for me to unload the wheel chair. On occasion, she acquiesced to using her aluminum forearm crutches for short distances.

  “Meet me out back,” she said over her shoulder, and went inside.

  I took out the wheelchair and went through the side gate and pulled the contraption backward up onto the deck. The pool lights were on. We’d had an electrician come to repair and recheck all the lines. There was something about that blue-green glow that I’d missed when it wasn’t there, and I’d actually wondered why complete darkness never bothered me out at the shack, but I avoided it here.

  I went inside to the kitchen and took a couple of beers out of the fridge. Sherry was still in the back somewhere, so I opened the Rolling Rocks and returned to the deck. Sitting at the patio table, I watched the lights dance off the oak leaves and the tile around the pool, and then— almost unconsciously—off the chrome of the wheelchair.

  Without examinin
g my thought process, I got up and moved the chair, rolling it back behind Sherry’s hammock in the corner, where it was out of sight. I had just settled back into my chair when the pool lights went out.

  “It’s OK, Max,” Sherry said from the French doors of her bedroom, before I had a chance to jump. The still, burning light behind her showed her in silhouette. She was moving across the patio with the forearm crutches, and when she passed me, I felt the bare skin of her hip touch my shoulder. The scent of jasmine was replaced by a perfume I had not smelled for more than a year.

  I heard the ruffle of water as Sherry lowered herself into the pool, and I hesitated for only a second. My heart was thumping when I stepped naked into the water and found her in the dark.

  There is something about water, its movement, its cocoon of film over skin, its ability to mimic weightlessness: Some call it limbic; some call it internal; some call it healing. We used no words at all.

  Later, when I carried Sherry to her bedroom and lay her down on the bed, I noticed that the mirror she had depended on for so long was gone. She had moved it from its regular space, stored it away perhaps for good.

  We lay in each other’s arms for hours that night, neither sleeping, nor dreaming.

  “Thank you, Max,” Sherry finally said.

  “For?” I whispered.

  “For saving me.”

  I used my fingertips to move a strand of her hair behind her ear and watched her profile against the glow from the pool.

  “Then I thank you, for the same reason, babe,” I said.

  She turned to meet my eyes and whispered a phrase for the ages before meeting my lips with hers: